Through an Uncommon Lens: The Life and Photography of F. Holland Day

3. 69 Cornhill

• 41 • three 69 Cornhill ∂¥ Close by the rooms where the Visionists debated art, literature, and philosophy late into the night, the publishing firm of Copeland and Day took up occupancy on the upper floor at 69 Cornhill in a picturesque area of Boston described by Guiney as “a hive of bookstalls” and artist supply shops. Book News correspondent Nathan Dole recollected climbing up “two flights of straight and narrow stairs”to enter a cozy bookcase-lined room.Visitors noted“the air of quiet dignity and ‘tone’” of the office with “beautiful tooled bindings and folios exquisitely printed add[ing] to the bookishness of the place.”Set in the oldest section of the city, the office windows overlooked a jumble of curved alleyways, eighteenthcentury structures, and“a flight of old steps leading down into Brattle Street.”1 Inthespringof 1893,whenthefirm’sshinglewasfinallyhungout,LouiseGuiney announced that she was “ready to dance every time I think of it.”2 Copeland and Day was, from its outset, a collaborative venture.3 Although Guiney was never a principal in the firm, her influence was everywhere: she suggested new authors, read manuscripts, edited galleys, and submitted her own work. During the nearly six years that Copeland and Day was in operation,the firm issued five publications under Guiney’s name. Two privately printed Christmas booklets, Nine Sonnets 42 • chapter three Written at Oxford and The Sermon to the Birds and the Wolf of Gubbio (a translation from the Italian of St. Francis), were published in 1895 and 1898 respectively, and a small tribute written on the death of Robert Louis Stevenson in conjunction with Alice Brown came out in 1895. Her friends also issued Guiney’s only book of short stories, Lovers’ Saint Ruth’s and Three Other Tales, and a book of essays titled Patrins; neither sold well. Her breadth of literary knowledge was her greatest contribution to the firm and enabled the ambitious young house to attract an eclectic stable of authors. Although it was the American publisher of Oscar Wilde’s Salom é and The Sphinx and the controversial Yellow Book, for the most part, writes Thomas Boss,“the firm genuinely pursued Arts and Crafts design as opposed to the popular fashion of the time of publishing artsy books in the Decadent or Nouveau manner.”4 The publishing house issued so many works by Roman Catholics, partly because of Guiney’s connections, that in 1897 there was talk of a separate catalogue for Catholic readers. Copeland and Day also produced a juvenile series, dubbed the “Yellow Hair Library,” which included Arabella and Araminta Stories by Gertrude Smith, and Louise Chandler Moulton’s In Childhood’s Country. Joe Walker Kraus in his study of the firm noted that“at least a quarter of the books published by Copeland and Day were by authors associated in some way with the Youth’s Companion,”a popular periodical aimed at juvenile readers.5 This was the result of solicitations by Day’s associate Herbert Copeland (figure 16), who after graduating from Harvard in 1891 had joined the Companion’s large editorial staff. Copeland was a candidate for partnership with Day because of his general business knowledge, his familiarity with the book trade, and his acquaintance with potential authors. “A nervous, unhealthy little man”6 who had expensive tastes but modest means (his father was a clerk at the Church of the Advent), Copeland had been drawn into the coterie of the Visionists by fellow Harvard graduates Herbert Stone, Ingalls Kimball, and Herbert Small (also his freshman-year roommate). He was introduced to Fred Day by Philip Savage, another Harvard man, and his sister Gertrude. The Copeland and Day friendship was slow to develop, however; it was February 1892 before Copeland would write, “I refuse to call you Mr any longer” and inquired how Day wanted to be addressed .7 Guiney was reluctant to accept Copeland as well,writing to Day in May 1892 that although, as Gertrude Savage had observed, Copeland“is, superficially, very like you, I should guess that there is a world of fundamental differences.”8 In time,Guiney softened toward Copeland,eventually calling him“a nice fellow,” often inquiring for him in correspondence to Day, and inviting him to vacation in 69 cornhill • 43 Maine.9 Still, in many respects, Copeland remained an outsider, cynical by nature, unrefinedincorrespondence,andsourindisposition.Characterizedasa“charming, dissipated, ineffectual person” by...